Cat6 keystone jacks not working.

RimBlock

RimBlock

RimBlock

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Joined
10 Nov 2004
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Expat in Singapore
Hi,

Just thinking you guys here may have more cabling experience with regards to my problem.

I have my Cat6 laid on my ground floor but terminating in the 3M cat6 keystone jacks is providing to be a bit of a nightmare......

The jacks I have are these and have a couple of 'doors' on the back which open butterfly style and a small block inside with 8 holes which run vertically with channels top and bottom running horizontally for tidying the wires. The back of the block has the colour codes for which wire should go in to each hole (using T568B).

After putting the wires in the individual holes the small block goes back in to the jacks body and the butterfly doors are closed pushing the block further in to the body and causing the connectors to cut in to the cable skin and make live connections.

That is the theory anyway....

I cannot for the love of all things holy get a decent termination. I have tried doing it by hand with just hand pressure, by pushing the block in with hard hand pressure, hitting the block with a toffee nosed hammer and now taking the block out and connecting the wires to the individual internal connectors of the jack by hand.

Each time I get indication that wires 3 & 4 are not connected and there is a flickering on line 6 when using the cable tester. The patch cables plugged in to the jacks are tested as working and if I replace the jacks with RJ45 plugs then the cable checks out without any breaks.

Crimping plugs is fine, wiring cat5e jacks using a punchdown tool is fine but these 'tool less' cat6 jacks are driving me nuts.

I have tried to get these connected 2 or three times on each of 6 cables and am pulling my hair out.

Any advice or suggestions on how to get these working ?

Thanks
RB
 
Ah, tool less jacks, surely the most inaccurate description given to a product ever. PistolPete is probably on the right lines - these things are inevitably designed to work with a specific manufacturer's cable, so things like using stranded rather than solid, different gauge wire, even sheathing thickness stops them working. Are you using 3m cable as well?
 
Thanks Guys,

Yep the cable is 3M solid core and I believe it is this one from memory.

The cable and jacks were bought from the same place together but, as mentioned, even if I push each cable into the connectors on the main body of the jack ir still doesn't work :(.

My brother-in-law bought them through the company he works for as it is a cabling company so gets preferred rates but cabling is not his speciality.

The rj45 plugs were also bought from them and they work fine....

The added issue now is that one of the 4 cables in to my living room I have had to trim down so much trying out the jacks and confirming the cable integrity with the rj45 plug that there is only enough in the wall socket for one more go without me having to open all the all trunking back up and feed more cable through (there is around 5 meters spare at the other end which will go to a patch panel...

RB
 
For anyone who is interested I have found the solution....

They needed a putting together with a womans light touch and not having the plastic 'threading' block crushed back in to the jack body using the mighty power of my buttocks.... :D.

Seriously it seems that the plastic block needs to be placed in the jack body with minimal force and the butterfly arms pushed closed behind it to push the block with enough force to make the proper connection.

All seems to be working now.

RB
 
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